No one has the right to call you a 'climate denier' for expressing your views on climate change
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN
If your neighbour is a charter member of the Al Gore Nation, today would probably be a bad time to ask him how he's been enjoying shovelling all that "global warming" out of his driveway this winter.
Trust me, climate hysterics (anyone who accuses others of being "climate deniers") do not like being mocked.
For example, last week's otherwise largely favourable response to my March 2 column "The carbon cops are coming, When anyone says 'polluters will pay' to reduce greenhouse gases, they mean you and me," included this reply from "William."
"My apologies for not responding to your diatribe against the Suzuki Foundation's proposal for a Carbon Tax, Sunday March 2, 2008, but I've been busy. Your argument ... should be backed up by a simple but effective test of your own about C02 emissions. Park your vehicle in your garage, close the garage door, roll down the car windows, and sit in it with the motor idling for about an hour or more. Then come out and give us all a full and highly detailed report on your findings."
Poor "William." He wants to save the world, but he doesn't know the difference between deadly carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), the latter of which, while toxic in very high concentrations, is also essential to all life on Earth, as well as being a naturally occurring greenhouse gas.
Then again, what can we expect in the current climate of intolerance, when even a revered environmentalist like David Suzuki, while not suggesting the self-inflicted gassing of anyone, urges university students to find ways to jail politicians who don't meet his standards for fighting climate change? (A spokesman for his charitable foundation says he wasn't being literal.)
In any event, climate hysterics tend to be sensitive when you poke fun at them about this year's cold, snowy winter being counter-intuitive to global warming.
HEAD GASKET
Before they blow a head gasket, "weather" isn't "climate." One cold winter doesn't disprove man-made global warming. The theory doesn't argue all parts of the world will get warmer, or that it will get warmer every year. Some parts will actually get colder.
Then again, we weren't the ones hysterically declaring last year's mild early winter was a sign of global warming -- total nonsense -- or predicting that last year would be the hottest on record. It wasn't.
The scientific "consensus" on climate change is simply that man-made greenhouse gas emissions, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas), are causing warming beyond what naturally occurs because of the greenhouse effect.
While the impact on climate, and thus on us, will be significant over time, there are substantial disagreements, and great unknowns, about what the precise impacts will be, how severe, where, when and most important, what we should do about it.
And on that issue no one -- no one -- has the right to silence debate -- no scientist, no environmentalist, no politician -- by dismissing anyone who disagrees with them as a "climate denier."
Because what to do about it isn't a scientific issue, it's a political one that will involve huge expenditures of public money. Our money. And we all get to decide that.
Yes, you can question the current orthodoxies about global warming and still care about the environment.
Yes, you have a right to ask whether the solutions being proposed -- for example, Kyoto -- make any sense.
HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT
Finally, there are many things we can all do to help the environment and lower our reliance on fossil fuels, good ideas regardless of your views on global warming.
Don't buy a bigger house than you need. Don't drive a more powerful car (or buy more cars) than you need. Cut down on flying. Vacation closer to home. Take public transit more often. When possible, buy domestic instead of foreign produce and manufactured goods. Eat less meat, more fruits and vegetables. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
But the choice between, say, nuclear or wind and solar power as we head into the future?
That's a political issue. We all get a say on that.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2008/03/09/4952296-sun.php
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN
If your neighbour is a charter member of the Al Gore Nation, today would probably be a bad time to ask him how he's been enjoying shovelling all that "global warming" out of his driveway this winter.
Trust me, climate hysterics (anyone who accuses others of being "climate deniers") do not like being mocked.
For example, last week's otherwise largely favourable response to my March 2 column "The carbon cops are coming, When anyone says 'polluters will pay' to reduce greenhouse gases, they mean you and me," included this reply from "William."
"My apologies for not responding to your diatribe against the Suzuki Foundation's proposal for a Carbon Tax, Sunday March 2, 2008, but I've been busy. Your argument ... should be backed up by a simple but effective test of your own about C02 emissions. Park your vehicle in your garage, close the garage door, roll down the car windows, and sit in it with the motor idling for about an hour or more. Then come out and give us all a full and highly detailed report on your findings."
Poor "William." He wants to save the world, but he doesn't know the difference between deadly carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), the latter of which, while toxic in very high concentrations, is also essential to all life on Earth, as well as being a naturally occurring greenhouse gas.
Then again, what can we expect in the current climate of intolerance, when even a revered environmentalist like David Suzuki, while not suggesting the self-inflicted gassing of anyone, urges university students to find ways to jail politicians who don't meet his standards for fighting climate change? (A spokesman for his charitable foundation says he wasn't being literal.)
In any event, climate hysterics tend to be sensitive when you poke fun at them about this year's cold, snowy winter being counter-intuitive to global warming.
HEAD GASKET
Before they blow a head gasket, "weather" isn't "climate." One cold winter doesn't disprove man-made global warming. The theory doesn't argue all parts of the world will get warmer, or that it will get warmer every year. Some parts will actually get colder.
Then again, we weren't the ones hysterically declaring last year's mild early winter was a sign of global warming -- total nonsense -- or predicting that last year would be the hottest on record. It wasn't.
The scientific "consensus" on climate change is simply that man-made greenhouse gas emissions, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas), are causing warming beyond what naturally occurs because of the greenhouse effect.
While the impact on climate, and thus on us, will be significant over time, there are substantial disagreements, and great unknowns, about what the precise impacts will be, how severe, where, when and most important, what we should do about it.
And on that issue no one -- no one -- has the right to silence debate -- no scientist, no environmentalist, no politician -- by dismissing anyone who disagrees with them as a "climate denier."
Because what to do about it isn't a scientific issue, it's a political one that will involve huge expenditures of public money. Our money. And we all get to decide that.
Yes, you can question the current orthodoxies about global warming and still care about the environment.
Yes, you have a right to ask whether the solutions being proposed -- for example, Kyoto -- make any sense.
HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT
Finally, there are many things we can all do to help the environment and lower our reliance on fossil fuels, good ideas regardless of your views on global warming.
Don't buy a bigger house than you need. Don't drive a more powerful car (or buy more cars) than you need. Cut down on flying. Vacation closer to home. Take public transit more often. When possible, buy domestic instead of foreign produce and manufactured goods. Eat less meat, more fruits and vegetables. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
But the choice between, say, nuclear or wind and solar power as we head into the future?
That's a political issue. We all get a say on that.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2008/03/09/4952296-sun.php
